or a part to the support of public schools. The amount reserved by the State on account of unincorporated places was paid to them, to be used for the support of public schools. The exact amount of the surplus revenue fund used for educational purposes by the towns cannot be determined, but the basis for a fairly correct approximation has been found. From 1856 to 1872, the amount of this fund used for schools each year was separately reported by each town which made a return of its educational expenditures. The entire sum thus reported was $28,844.95, an average of $1,802.81 each year. Before and after the period named no separate report of this fund was made, but it is probable that the sum expended each year for schools did not materially vary from the average above given; so that the expenditure from this source from June, 1837, to June, 1872, would amount to $73,715.21.

NEW JERSEY.

New Jersey received $764,070.60 of the surplus revenue, and divided the money among the several counties of the State, and it was by them loaned on proper security. The yearly interest, divided among the towns of each county, may be used by them in current expenditures for any purpose for which they are authorized by law to expend other town funds. It was undoubtedly expected that the income of these county funds would be generally applied to the support of public schools; and, though the reports of the State superintendent of education prior to the year 1852 do not classify the funds expended by the towns in addition to the amount received from the State, there is sufficient evidence that a considerable portion of them was derived from the surplus revenue each year from 1837 to the year mentioned. In the year 1852 the State superintendent, in enumerating the town expenditures for support of schools, included an item of $23,322.66 "from other sources, being chiefly the interest on surplus revenue." A similar item, the amount varying from about $24,000 to about $50,000, is included in the report for each year from that time to 1867, when for the first time the amount from surplus revenue is separately stated. It was $26,531.54 for that year. From August 31, 1866, to August 31, 1877, it amounted to $349,313.18, being an average of $31,755.74 a year. Estimating the yearly expenditure from this source for education for the years 1853 to 1877, both inclusive, on this basis, we have $793,894.50. It is highly probable that the yearly average from 1837 to 1852 was more than one-half as large as between the latter date and 1877, but estimating it at $15,000 a year we have, to add to the above, $225,000, making a total of $1,018,894.50 realized from the income of the surplus revenue for the benefit of the public schools of New Jersey.1

UNSYSTEMATIC CHARACTER OF THE AID AFFORDED EDUCATION.

In the distribution of the surplus in the United States Treasury it

1 The pressure of other work has prevented the completion of this inquiry with reference to the other States which participated in the benefit of the distribution of surplus

revenue.

will be observed that there was no condition that it should be used for the promotion of education, when received by the respective States. Moreover, in distributing the public domain, as already noticed, no one can fail to observe how unequal was the distribution as respects populaOn this point there was a constant struggle.

The State of Maryland made a special effort to secure equalization of grant. Other States criticised her action. The struggle manifested itself in Congress in various forms. Many propositions were made by leading men; resolutions were offered and referred to committees.

In the Nineteenth Congress a report was made by Mr. Strong, from the Committee on Public Lands, February 24, 1826, on the resolution "to inquire into the expediency of appropriating a portion of the net annual proceeds of the sales and entries of the public lands exclusively for the support of common schools, and of apportioning the same among the several States in proportion to the representation of each in the House of Representatives." The committee observed:

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The resolution under consideration proposes to appropriate a portion of the proceeds of the public lands to a new and specific object: to convert it into a permanent fund for the sole use and support of common schools in the several States, and to divide this fund among the several States in proportion to the representation of each in this House. A township of land has been given to the "nation's guest." Large portions of land have from time to time been given to other individuals and to public institutions. Now, if it be good faith to give away the lands from which the revenue pledged to the sinking fund is derived, it cannot be bad faith to appropriate a portion, at least, of their proceeds for the support of common schools.

Unless children are taught how to govern themselves and how to be governed by law, they will rarely make good citizens. It may be objected that the Constitution does not give to Congress the power to appropriate the proceeds of these lands for the purposes of education. The question is not whether Congress can superintend and control the private schools in the several States, but whether Congress can appropriate the proceeds of these lands for the use and support of those private schools, to be applied by and under the exclusive authority of the several States.

Common schools are the nurseries of youth; they are the most universal, as they are the most effectual, means of opening the mind, of giving reason the mastery, and of fixing in habits of sober industry the rising generations of men. Can, then, a portion of the proceeds of the national domain be expended in any way which will more directly or forcibly come home to the wants and wishes, the business and bosoms, of the people?

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In further discussing this measure, some of its obvious advantages must not be overlooked. It will give some aid to all in the acquisition of learning. It will give efficient aid to the destitute, without which aid they must be left uneducated and in ignorance. It will diffuse, in the quickest and cheapest way, the greatest amount of useful knowledge among the people. It will tend as much as anything else to make young men and old respectable, efficient, good citizens. These considerations, it would seem, cannot fail to awaken the attention of the State legislatures. They surely are not now to learn for the first time that the success of good government, the independ157

ence of the States, and the permanency of their political institutions are vitally connected with a well educated yeomanry. Besides, the fact of there being a permanent fund, the interest of which is to be applied to the glorious purpose of training up the young mind in the way of knowledge and morals, will, in some degree at least, excite in these guardians of State rights a just emulation in promoting, to every practicable end, the great cause of common education.

It is a singular fact in the history of our species that nowhere has common education made any considerable progress among the people without the efficient aid and protection of the government. There is, generally, a prevailing indifference among the illiterate to the cultivation of the mind; were it not so, the poor man, though learned, can rarely instruct his children, because his time is necessarily occupied in earning their bread; and the ignorant man, though rich, cannot do it, because he is himself untaught.

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Are not, then, the National and State Legislatures under the strongest obligations to the people of this country to provide and apply the means whereby every child may have the opportunity, in these nurseries of the mind, of acquiring some knowledge of letters and of the various duties he owes to his country and his God?

Common education can be estimated only in proportion as its necessities and advantages are felt; and as the same number of children as there are dollars annually distributed from this fund may receive, with proper management, about six months' common schooling, will not the people, witnessing these moral and intellectual improvements, look with intenser interest to their respective State Legislatures as the immediate dispensers of these benefits? And will not the Legislature of each State, viewing the increase of common schools and the augmented amount of schooling, and perceiving their benign and salutary effects upon the mind, morals, and habits of the rising generation, look with increased steadiness to the Federal head whence these blessings flow?

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The committee are not unaware that there is, in this pecuniary connection, a seeming tendency to produce an undue dependence of the States upon the Federal Government. They are persuaded, however, that a little examination will dissipate this cause of alarm. The strength of the tie and the degree of the dependence, it is fair to presume, will always be in exact proportion to the actual benefits resulting from the proposed fund. If the fund be not beneficial, it can have no influence, good or bad. Suppose great benefits to flow from it, what are they? Shall we hereafter look for them in the increased ignorance and subdued spirits of our fellow citizens, or shall we find and feel them every where in the rapid progress of education and in the improvement of mind and morals? If it be true, as it unquestionably is, that the safety and success of our political institutions depend absolutely upon the intelligence and virtue of the people, and if it be true, also, that the direct effect of the proposed fund will be to increase that intelligence and virtue, then it is equally true that there can be no undue dependence of the people or the States upon the Federal Government. As these benefits increase, so also will increase the ability and means of detecting and resisting the encroachments of power. Although each part of our political system is dependent upon the other, yet there is a wide difference between that dependence which springs from mean or guilty motives and that which has for its end the union and strength, the happiness and glory, of a generous people. And whatever other men may be disposed to do, that portion of the people to whom our governments, whether Federal or State, in prosperity or adversity, must look for protection and defence, if intelligent and virtuous, will never do slavish homage or tamely surrender their liberties to any earthly power.

The proposed measure, the committee are also induced to believe, will have a most salutary effect in respect to the public domain itself and all the great interests con

nected with it. There is much apathy in the public mind in regard to the value and importance of these lands. Strong indications are manifested to reduce their price, and to bring the whole into market as speedily as practicable, and without any reference to the existing demand for them. Should this happen, the consequence will be to depreciate the fair average value of land, whether cultivated or uncultivated, by putting more into the market than could be occupied perhaps in fifty or an hundred years to come; to fling the best of them into the hands of moneyed men and speculators by their cheapness and the prospect of gain, and to retard cultivation and population by the high prices at which they would be held. The committee think the proposed measure will produce a counteracting interest; an interest which, while it guards the public domain from sudden depreciation on the one hand and from speculation on the other, will induce a more rapid and a sounder population.

The foundation of our political institutions, it is well known, rests in the will of the people, and the safety of the whole superstructure, its temple and altar, daily and hourly depends upon the discreet exercise of that will. How, then, is this will to be corrected, chastened, subdued? By education-that education the first rudiments of which can be acquired only in common schools. How are the millions of American citizens to be enabled to compare their government and institutions with those of other countries; to estimate the civil and political privileges and blessings they enjoy; and to decide, understandingly, whether they ought or ought not to protect and defend the Constitution under which they live?-by education. Has the Legislature of each State provided all the means that are wanted to this end? Is there nothing more to be done? Are all sufficiently educated? There are some wealthy men and many a poor man in our land whose family and fireside have never yet been cheered by the light and benefits of common education. Is there, then, no necessity for the proposed measure? Its advantages must be admitted. That there are heads and hearts among us waiting for instruction, cultivation, improvement, will not be denied; and that the means are still wanted (through the inability or indifference of individuals and of the States) to accomplish this great purpose cannot be doubted. Why then delay ?

Again, in the Twenty-first Congress, Mr. Hunt, from the select com. mittee appointed to consider the expediency of appropriating the net proceeds of the sales of public lands among the several States and Territories for the purposes of education, made a report, from which I cull the following:

The domain thus vested in the United States was upon no contingency or event to revert back to the States making the cessions, or to become the separate property of individual States. It was expressly made a common fund, and a trust and authority were reposed in Congress for two general purposes.

The numerous donations of public land for the purpose of education, and the appropriations of the road and canal fund to the new States, being a part of the proceeds of sales, have long been considered by different administrations as the exercise of power authorized by the Constitution. If Congress can make direct grants of land to literary institutions or to individual States, the power of granting the money arising from the sales would seem to be necessarily implied. The present resolution calls for no power of Congress which has not always been exercised, neither does it involve the right and policy of raising money by taxation and transmitting the same to the States, but merely requires the equitable distribution of the proceeds of a common fund already belonging to the people. The Constitution, which authorizes Congress to dispose of the territory belonging to the United States, gives an express power over the public domain, and implies the power to sell and to receive the purchase money, and

the consequent power to grant and appropriate the same for all purposes authorized by the Constitution.

In relation to the application of the money arising from the public lands, the committee are well satisfied that if it be limited to any single object, the permanent and general diffusion of intelligence is so important not only to the prosperity and honor of the country but essential to the very existence and preservation of our republican institutions, that it presents the first and strongest claim to the attention and patronage of government. The promotion of other objects, however, is of so great and general importance that it is worthy of consideration whether some latitude of discretion should not be intrusted to the legislatures of the different States to select objects interesting to themselves, to which their portion of the revenue might, in whole or in part, be applied. As the resolution is limited to education only, the committee recommend the accompanying bill for that purpose.

In February, 1838, Mr. William Cost Johnson, of Maryland, presented the following resolutions in the House of Representatives:

Resolved, That each of the United States has an equal right to participate in the benefits of the public lands, the common property of the nation.

Resolved, That each of the States in whose favor Congress has not made appropriations o land for the purposes of education is entitled to such appropriations as will correspond, in a just proportion, with those heretofore made in favor of other States. Resolved, That the committee of report a bill making an increased appropriation of the public lands, the property of the United States, yet unappropriated, to all the States and Territories of the Union, for the purposes of free schools, academies, and the promotion and diffusion of education in every part of the United States.

In support of these resolutions, Mr. Johnson said:

It must be apparent to all that, as a common property, designed in the articles of cession to be granted for the benefit of all the States, and not for the partial benefit of a part of the States, any mode of distribution or appropriation which is partial in its tendency operates an injustice to the rest, in direct violation both of the language and intention of the acts of cession. So far as they have been or may be appropriated for objects of national defence, so far as they have been sold and the proceeds paid into the Treasury, the Government has acted faithfully; but, so far as they have been applied to State and not national purposes, so far as they have been granted to particular States for specific purposes, when they might have been granted for the like purposes to all the States, the Government has acted in direct violation of the very language and spirit of the compacts.

The Government has acted in its unmeasured liberality toward the Western States with great injustice to the old States, an injustice which is doubly severe upon those old States whose limits are comparatively small and whose means of revenue are not very great, in giving immense bounties of the public domain for specific, and local, and State purposes.

The Government has given to the Western States one thirty-sixth part of the public lands for the purposes of education in those States and Territories in which the lands are situated, and thus has been carved out of the general property of the whole nation, which Congress solemnly pledged itself to appropriate only for the benefit of all, this vast amount for the local and exclusive benefit of a part. Have not the old States an equal-I might say truly a superior— claim to a like proportionate appropriation of the public property for the same purpose? Is not education equally as important in one region of the nation as it is in another? And is it not as expensive in the old as it is in the new States? Can this Government, I will ask, consider itself as acting in honest and just faith as long as it omits to make similar appropriations of the public lands to the old States for purposes of education? The appropriations have